James Spader (“Boston Legal”) returns to prime time in his strangest role yet — a former government agent, Raymond “Red” Harrington, who is also on the FBI’s most-wanted list. In the dramatic premiere of “The Blacklist,” Harrington turns himself in to authorities.

He offers to help the agency catch a long-thought-dead terrorist, Ranko Zamani, under the condition that he speaks only to Elizabeth Keen, a neophyte FBI profiler fresh out of Quantico (played by actress Megan Boone).

What follows is a twisting series of events as the race to stop a terrorist begins. Red keeps everyone guessing about his true intentions (he seems to have no connection to Elizabeth, for instance).

Producers addressed the similarities between their show and the big-screen movie “The Silence of the Lambs” — which starred Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster — in a recent forum in LA. “There’s a big difference between the characters on our show and the characters of Hannibal and Clarice,” said executive producer John Eisendrath. “Red is not a psychopath. He is someone who is much more of an enigma. Very distinct from Hannibal Lecter, and I think the same is true for Elizabeth Keen.”

“There is a past between the two of them that she is not aware of, but he has an intimate knowledge of her past and her childhood,” Spader explained. “The relationship between [the characters] in the film you refer to, you know, is obsession, and it’s not based on any sort of reality at all.”